The iPhone was almost certainly 2009's top-selling smartphone after racking up world shipments of 24.89m units.
The figure comes from market watcher Gartner, but the conclusion is ours. Gartner revealed the figure today as the iPhone OS' share of the world smartphone market.
To put the number into context, Research in Motion' …

COMMENTS

volume or price

The real question is the cost of sales at a given volume. Apple I agree have a tiny share of the total phone market. But they are getting to charge through the nose for it. There is an advantage to having only one phone. Also, the phone is helping sell other Apple kit.

Re: O2 Prices

Just to confirm where you got this £189 for an iPhone from? I looked on the same O2 site and it's £449 PAYG which is the real reflection of unit cost, not the subsidised contract price. The contract price of iPhones is as low as possible to attract people with the flagship phone, Apple still charge through the nose to carriers for it, but carriers stump up to drag people onto their network with the 'amazing' iphone...

ummmm Justin

Yawn

"Yes, Apple sells the iPhone 3G and the 3GS, but they're essentially the same thing, differing solely on chip speed and storage capacity. They don't differ the way the BlackBerry Bold, Curve, Storm 2 and Pearl do, for instance." ... "In all, 1.211 billion phones shipped in 2009, down from 1.200 in 2008, according to Gartner. Apple shipped a mere 2.1 per cent of them."

What a bitter and twisted article. So this is the latest way the haters are belittling the success of the iPhone and Apples' "victory".

balanced article - I think so

The article is very well put with FACTS and FIGURES to backup the fact that marketing is used to make the fanboys think apple is doing well and the iphone is taking over when it clearly is not. Nokia's e71 still knocks the iphone for functional multitasking use. I can stream music, surf the web and run IM and email all the same time and switch my focus between each one.

Ah, but those huge global phone ship totals don't reflect profits....

They do indeed only make one phone. A smartphone. With biggie markup. 440 million odd Nokia phones shifted may sound impressive but they're not making much on most of those.

It is interesting how quickly the iPhone has galvanised people into the "smartphone" arena. It's not as if it's a particularly "smart phone" - multitasking, etc - but to be honest it's geeks and those with emotional ties to other platforms who shout the loudest about that one. The fact here is that the game has been changed once again, and finally for the better of the consumer: it's not about the chipset, stupid, it's about the user experience. And the rest of the field are still playing catchup to a degree. Talk about caught with your pants down: where are Nokia and SE in smartphones now?

And... your point?

Why not include netbooks, ipads and anything else that can be a phone? Sure, it may not come via AT&T, T-mobile, et al. but so what, the whole point of a smartphone is to have a convergent device that blurs the line between phone and computer. The ipod touch has the same form factor as an iphone so perhaps the delimiter is GSM or 3G but add a MiFi and watch the world get a bit more grey.

The question is will it really be that long before there is something that you pick up easily at an airport kiosk or 7-11, sticks to your preferred mobile UI device and supplies the desired connection. It could be something like a sim card but one that extends the radio to cover the local government's choice of protocol and frequency.

Cheap Android phones

'I read today that a < €150 pre-pay android smartphone will be available in europe later this year.'

Already happened last year, when the T-mobile Pulse on PAYG went for under 100 GBP for a while (about £150 right now). T-mobile will also sell you 6 months of data access for 20 quid (total) and will unlock the phone for a reasonable fee after 3 months. Android isn't perfect, of course (and neither is T-mobile's coverage!) but when this sort of deal is offered you can get a really capable smartphone (with enough left over for a decent micro SD card) for less than the price of an iPod Touch (let alone the iPhone, which only seems cheap if you look at the contract models and forget about the price of the contract). Hopefully we'll be seeing a lot more phones in this price range before long.

RE: Apple FUD

I agree with everything you wrote, except: the title and "The iPhone sure as hell aint no iPod- Apple's only real standout resounding success of the last 20 years that truly did leave the competition standing."

The reason - the user experience is far better than on many, many other phones from manufacturers who have had years to concentrate on making said phones...

Yupp. The iPhone is huuuge.

The iPhone might run hot (though the people i know who have them havent found it any hotter than any other phone)... but its dimensions aren't particularly large. In fact, you could say they're almost exactly normal for this type of phone.

iPhone 115.5 x 62.1 x 12.3mm (88222 cubic mm) … 135g

HTC Hero 112.0 x 56.2 x 14.4mm (90639 cubic mm) … 135g

HTC HD2 120.0 x 67.0 x 11mm (88440 cubic mm) … 157g

Nexus One 119 x 59.8 x 11.5mm (81836 cubic mm) … 130g

Nexus One is 3mm narrower, 3.5mm longer and 0.8mm thinner. Overall its cubic mm size is smaller - but then you'd expect that after 2 years of technology moving on and making components smaller, wouldn't you?

Different does not equal better

You mean a different user experience, one that you apparently like. I on the other hand have tried it and can't stand it, I need a physical keyboard to be able to use the phone as I like, so no "touch" phone will ever be a "better user experience" for me.

Ask yourself, why doesn't everyone want an iPhone? My answer is, because I don't like the interface there must be others like me, what is yours?

Blah blah blah

iPhone this... Apple that.... As long as your battery is non-replaceable and you can only get apps from one source (APPLE), I won't be owning an iPhone. Enjoy being hemmed in by Apple. My Blackberry gives me options.

Options are good but I bet you don't use them

Have you every actually used a removable battery? I mean... do you own multiple batteries and switch them out on a regular basis?

It's great you like options but I don't know anyone who carries a second battery with them. I just don't understand the removable battery being an important feature.

The app store comment is more valid. Other negatives more important then a removable battery are lack of Bluetooth keyboard support (or a complete Bluetooth stack, really) and lack of a built in ToDo app with sync to Outlook.

Exactly.

People go on and on about removable batteries, but in 10 years, and 8 different smartphones across WinMo and Android, the only times I've ever had to remove the battery were

a) when putting the SIM in when I first got the device

b) when WinMo crashed and I needed to remove the battery to force it to reboot.

With potential technologies like AirNergy* and PowerMat (where you can replace the standard battery with a 3rd-party job that gives wireless charging) then there is starting to be a semblance of a reason to rate a device on the removable battery, but at the moment for the vast majority of device owners, the removable battery serves no other purpose than to give more pieces to pick up and re-assemble if you're unfortunate enough to drop your handset while walking down the street.

Now you do

The first thing I buy to go with a new phone is a spare battery, charge it and stick it into my backpack in a plastic bag. A modern battery will keep at least half the charge for a few months so I swap the batteries about twice a year. I have used the spare a few times and definitely glad it was there.

BTW, the second thing I buy is an SD card of the appropriate format to hold media files, maps and some file space.

Nope

If Nokia "know how to cut their manufacturing costs" as you say, then they aren't doing a very good job. In the last reported quarterly statements, Nokia sold 10 times as many cell phones as Apple but they lost several hundred million dollars for the quarter while Apple made billions. Apple is only trying to sell one model phone where they can make over $600 per phone before they even start counting app, music, movies, e-books and Apple-certified peripheral sales. Meanwhile, Nokia has wasted gobs of energy and money by offering over 200 cell phone models in the US alone. And which OS is Nokia pushing now? Is it Symbian or Maemo or MeeGoo?

One reason why Apple is so powerful in marketing is because they only need one message selling one product. iPhone! All they have to do in their commercials is show a real hand using a real iPhone using real apps. Nokia has real focus issues.

Nintendo

The similarity with Nintendo is striking, and has become increasingly so. Nintendo, in the years between the Super Nintendo and the Wii, had among the smallest market shares in the games industry, but has nearly always been - by quite a distance - the most profitable. All the while, its rivals slugged it out over meaningless 'market share' at the expense of their profit margins. (Nintendo's platform is also the most closed, and like Apple's, the most simple and user-friendly. Funny, that.)

In any case, while Apple appears content with the low-volume, fat-profit strategy for now, I'd argue it won't be long before they start expanding the range, iPod-style, to hit all segments of the market. Given how world + dog wants an iPhone but can't afford/isn't prepared to fork out for one at current pricing, I'd wager we've only seen a hint of Apple's future dominance of the mobile industry.

Good grief!

Why is it the same tired bollocks is rolled out by the same ignorant fuckwits every single time the iPhone or Apple are mentioned?! Go on, I dare you to be original! Think different as it were. All they have to say is "I hate Apple and anyone that buys their stuff is an iDiot. Look how clever, knowledgeable and rational I am! " Yes, you are very clever and whitty and most of all, you are a fucking bore! For a company that 'only' sells 24m of one (well two really) models of phone, they're looking in quite rude health next to their 440m selling competitors. I hear that they make decent laptops and desktops too, as well as selling a couple of MP3 players.

@RegisterFail and Gil Grissum: What is it like to still be living in your mothers basement at aged 40?